Something has been on my mind as of late. A year ago, I was deeply in love with the indie video game Mouthwashing. It hit many beats that I knew and experienced, leaving an impression on me for many months. Now, that love has petered out to a moderate like. This is due to a few different factors and none of them related to the game itself. It's been the people surrounding it. Both the fandom and how the developers approach a certain character (you, dear reader, probably already know who if you've played the game).

The Mouthwashing fandom had an especially toxic fandom on Twitter that I had the misfortune of interacting with a few times. This led me to seeking out a community of like-minded people to gush over the game with since I was desperate by that point. So I joined a Discord server dedicated to the game and filled with proshippers. Things were good for a while. But I had an experience with racism among that group that ended in the usual way: we POC get pushed out of a group while the racist and their friends pretend everything is fine and we're just "overreacting". It leaves a bitter taste on the tongue.

But the icing on top is seeing how the devs approach this controversy magnet: my favorite character in the game, Anya. After seeing an update where the team essentially said "we are glad our game is sparking a much needed discussion surrounding SA", it irked me a bit and it took me a little while to figure out why. The devs are following this zeitgeist among the youth and making the game a "teachable moment" surrounding rape/rape culture. And I hate this trend with a passion. And following the game for as long as I did, I noticed another trend. The devs did not flesh out Anya nearly as much as other characters. No shitposts for this poor innocent victim, nosiree. Just following the usual archtype of rape victim characters: Sad Cisgender White Woman Who Doesn't Deserve It (saintly virgin / mother) and is thus a Martyr, to borrow the language of a great writer I like named Johannes T. Evans. Any flaws we learn about her from the devs are common and relatable, innocent traits that no one can get angry about. Nothing pushed here. They took the easy road and it's so disappointing.

All in all, I still like the game and will continue to do so. I will hold the experience close to my chest and treasure the good times I had with some cool people I met in the fandom. But the magic is gone now.